♥ New Year, New Skills!

Another year has pretty much come and gone, and I am looking forward to expanding my education in glassworking over the upcoming 365 days. Starting in January, I will be taking a weekly workshop in glass fusing at a local stained-glass shop. I am excited to try my hand at working with glass in an entirely new direction, and am certain that my flameworking will be both influential as well as influenced by the experience. The first project I will be undertaking will be to make myself a set of funky ‘n’ functional glass coasters since I so desperately need some and it’s quite the trick to find any that suit my sense of style and design... Necessity is often the mother of creation when you are a true DIY grrrl, and this certainly holds true in my case!

The second endeavour into expanding my skill-set is a week-long class in boroscilicate marble-making taught by Christopher Rice at the Corning Museum of Glass. I was fortunate enough to take a trip out to visit the CMoG this past summer to browse their extensive collection of art glass as well as learn of their world-class education facilities - even more fortunately, I have been accepted into Chris’ boroscilicate marble course this winter! You can be sure that I will be sharing the results of both the marble-making and glass fusing classes as I progress thru them.

Other than that, I’ve spent my holidays sketching out some ideas of what I would like to experiment with once I return to the torch in my spare time in the new year, as well as updating my online sketchbook to share that process - there can often be some interesting twists and turns along the path of bringing a hand-drawn image into the sculptural reality of the third dimension, so be sure to check back as I update with the newest postings.

Finally, as I have been enjoying this winter wonderland rather than working in the studio, I will leave you with an image from this past summer’s trip to the CMoG while I go back to enjoying a glass of wine by the fireplace and wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2010!